Tag Archives: self-reflection

After an extended holiday break I’ve had lots of time to relax and recharge my thoughts and of course with a new year comes new ideas, resolutions and personal promises but I think the burning question is “who do I want to be?”

Life isn’t just about me and it isn’t just about others, it is the harmonious and meaningful balance between the two that help develop the best version of yourself.

It’s not about what you have done or attained, I think it’s more about what you’ve overcome or changed to ensure a more awareness enhanced life that benefits not only you but those around you. Getting in touch with the “real you”, your core, is actually quite easy because your instincts/intuition is always plugged in, it’s just a matter of letting that inner voice be heard. What does your soul tell you, what does your heart want and are you listening to them at all? Are you being true to yourself for yourself and not for others, that is where the true happiness and inner peace comes from, its internal, not external.

What is deemed important for you by others is not necessarily what is best for you and learning to heed the warnings and understand the signals are what will keep you self-aware and grounded. Your best self is the one you don’t have to pretend to be, what you present in all naturalness is your most authentic and usually what others are most drawn to. When you are unauthentic or trying to suppress the “real you” because you think others won’t like you then not only are you not giving yourself a chance but you aren’t giving others a chance and everyone loses.

Authentic is the “real you”, being yourself gives others the chance to know your heart, your soul, your passion and your many other qualities. When you are truly authentic you are completely in check with humility, gratitude and inspiration, all the beautiful qualities that create the moments to cherish and the opportunities that flourish.

Ralph Waldo Emerson said it best:

To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.

Now that is success! If you achieve one you’ve succeeded, if you achieve more than one, that is twice blessed, more to aspire to and more to be proud of. An enormous amount of personal gratitude comes with personal successes like these not because of any sort of adoration or recognition that may accompany it but because of the personal rewards from seeing others truly happy, knowing you were a part of it. Gratitude for having been given the opportunity not because you are looking to tip the scales of karma in your favor but simply because you can, because you are able to.

There is a bigger meaning to life and I think all of us at one time or another get lost in the hectic and forget the blessings in our own lives not because of a lack of gratitude but because the distractions in life become so over-stressed. Humility becomes familiar again when things slow down and you have a moment to look around and reflect, to realize how quickly things could change and how easily that might shift your emotions. It is only through compassion and empathy when you see others down on their luck that you realize that could be you and if it were would you handle it as respectfully as some people do? Would you fall apart and blame others and/or life or would you get back up, dust yourself off and try again? Strength of character runs high in those that refuse to give up their tenacity, ambition or integrity.

Alternatively when you see others that are high on the success scale, those who seem to have it all but are also very grounded and happy. Does it motivate or inspire you to also seek higher goals for yourself, to emulate and/or aspire to be like another, not because you want to be that person but because the qualities and personality as a result of that inner peace and connection is magnetic and you too want to feel that happiness.

You always hear that when people get to the end of their lives they start reflecting and thinking about the beginning, times that they regret and wish they had made better choices or taken different paths. While I always think it’s great to reflect and even better not to have regrets the important aspect of it all is the learning and I say “why wait, start asking yourself these questions now, the earlier the better”.

Do you find that no matter how much you think a situation is different this time you end up with the same outcome? A pattern that repeats itself continually is a sign that you aren’t dealing with something and it’s going to keep coming back, usually it hits harder each time. This is the Universe’s way of reminding you that in order to have a different outcome you need to change your patterns.

Definition of Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

No one gets through life without some pain but the pain doesn’t need to continually occur because you haven’t recognized the variety of consistencies that you keep repeating. I think when we repeat the same pattern the awareness we need to develop is learning to recognize that there is an underlying issue that needs to be addressed. The pattern exists because there is at least one area within you that is lacking and somewhere in the repetition of the cycle that area is being fed by the pattern, figuring out those areas can only be discovered through honest self-reflection. My personal opinion is that the patterns we play and re-play in our lives are created from something that began and/or was learned in our formative years, those are the years that truly are the most important time of our lives. Those years create and form the basis of who we are and will become and what we see and learn in that time is what we will continue to seek out whether we realize it or not.

The only way for us to progress is by changing the patterns that we imprison ourselves with.

So if you know something isn’t working why would you keep allowing it to occur? I think most of us go into all things with a positive mindset and outlook that things are different this time and that’s not a bad thing but sometimes what we see in others is a reflection of our own prospects and it’s that false sense of security that the ego uses to trick us into repeating the same patterns. The ego definitely gets something out of it and in turn makes us think we are in control but that may be the problem because instead of trying to guide an outcome we must allow things to be as they are, change and grow as they are meant to. In trying to control any situation you are likely to find that it gets more and more out of control because the natural reaction is to resist when feeling pinned down and disappointment will always follow. Sometimes realizations of being wrong can hurt and I know that when I have made those kinds of realizations it has left me feeling conflicted in being able to trust my own instincts. When you feel your own instincts have betrayed you, where do you go from there? Self-Reflection, is my only answer, taking a real hard look at where my missteps keep taking me.

My last life challenge, as difficult as it was, turned out to be of more significance than I had realized at first and broke me wide open but it is because of that challenge that I have found my way back to a path I started on years ago before I got so far off course. Finding myself again seems profoundly familiar except that I now carry much more wisdom, experience and gratitude. I may have fallen down at times but I will ALWAYS get back up and when I do my determination to move forward is that much stronger.

Whether or not it has been said or thought of this way I believe that the proverbial baggage that we all carry (no one is free of it) consists of many things including life experiences and it is the culmination of all that baggage that creates who we are today. I don’t know that I view baggage as a bad thing, even though some refer to it that way, I think it’s just a matter of whether or not each of our collective baggage (experiences and situations) fits or compliments those involved in our lives. Comfort with others is not found within trying to make their life (baggage) fit but rather fitting into each other’s lives comfortably and without prejudice.

You can’t change or erase someone’s past and if who they are or have become no longer feels comfortable then maybe it’s time to get honest. Parting ways in any kind of relationship is difficult because it wouldn’t be ending unless there was something that was causing it to end but staying to avoid hurting someone would eventually hurt them more.

Quote: You can choose courage or you can choose comfort, you cannot have both — Brene Brown

Changing your patterns so you can embrace the people that fit or compliment your life is not an easy task. It takes time to develop the awareness to recognize how the pattern begins and then more time to learn how to divert it but once you’ve found that rhythm you will find that what lies ahead can be positively life changing!